Self-Conscious Emotion: Shame
Self-conscious emotions emerge later in life and require complex cognitive abilities for them to come out, with the notion of self as a core part of them. For the elicitation, drawing out information or knowledge, there are three key components of the complex cognitive processes that occur: standards, rules, or goals (SRGs), evaluation (success or failure), and attribution of self (global or specific). The SRGs are the personal and/or social benchmarks that we use to evaluate ourselves; they can be anything from moral standards to societal rules. The self-conscious emotions arise when a person’s behavior is compared to the SRGs; without the internalized standards, there is no measure for feeling pride or shame. Next, comparing our behavior to the standards is where evaluation of the outcome comes in. This cognitive judgement of success (feelings of pride or satisfaction) or failure (feelings of guilt or embarrassment) is what triggers the emotion. Lastly, the attribu...